Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin, by Samantha Roberts
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance guests filled the Tuscany Room at Lorenzo’s de Mesilla during the organization’s monthly luncheon. During the luncheon, Davin Lopez, MVEDA CEO and president, gave a mid-year update on MVEDA’s activities.
“The past six months has had a lot of positive momentum,” Lopez said. “In fact, we have had the fastest start ever in regard to job creation.” Lopez said in the organization’s first half of its fiscal year, MVEDA has helped create 484 economic-based jobs. “I don’t see this slowing down,” he said.
In the past 18 months, MVEDA has brought $550 million in investments to southern New Mexico as well as 3,000 construction jobs that have already started and 1,000 permanent jobs have been announced. “We only announce a job if the investment is on the ground and work is being done,” said Lopez, adding that of the 1,000 permanent jobs, 700 of them are already in place.
MVEDA judges its success based off of leads, prospects and growth of existing businesses. Since last year, Lopez said leads have been up 120 percent and prospects have increased by 500 percent.
“We talked to existing business in southern New Mexico and asked them if they were planning on hiring more people in 2012. And 55 percent of them said yes,” Lopez said. “Overall, the demand in southern New Mexico has increased because of international trade and expansion of government companies.
Again, we are seeing a lot of momentum.” Though the government is a contributing factor, Lopez said the private sector is also playing a big role. “They are the ones creating those jobs I talked about,” he said.
Some of MVEDA’s biggest projects include Union Pacific, which has subcontracted 10 businesses for its phase I of construction. Seven of those 10 companies are from New Mexico.
Another big accomplishment has been in border logistics, creating an overweight zone that allows trucks from Mexico to come into the U.S. within a few miles and drop-off loads. “I can’t say the names because I will leave that for Gov. (Susana) Martinez to announce, but two companies have committed to moving to southern New Mexico because the overweight zone bill was passed,” said Lopez, adding that MVEDA is also focused on marketing North America to other countries because of its unique shipping advantages from Union Pacific and overweight zone.
Other areas of interest for MVEDA include unmanned aerial vehicles, Spaceport America, areas of high technology and the New Mexico State University Physical Science Laboratory as well as renewables, such as bio-mass, water conservation and recycling.
“Over the last 18 months, there has been a $1 billion investment in southern New Mexico. We want you to know things are happening here,” Lopez said.
MVEDA’s upcoming events include the Southwest Aerospace & Defense Trade Compliance Forum April 4-5 at Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces. For more information, visit www.mveda.com.
